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When a Muslim met a Jew (the X-rated edition)

A tale about elections, erections, infosec and awareness.

By Eh’den Biber

Last week I had a conversation with an extremely intelligent man, who is also holding a passport of a country who is Muslim. A country which don’t have a diplomatic relationship with the country I was born in, Israel.

The Arab-Israeli conflict reminds me a very smart Jewish which can be paraphrased more or less to “Wise people shut the fuck up”. Obviously wisdom is way far ahead of me, but in the meanwhile, it’s a great story.

So we talked. About Israel, and his country, and it was very interesting because he was surprised that I grew in a semi-atheist environment (Oh, Tel-Aviv, you have wonderful sides). I was surprised because I’m not used to a dialogue about the subject that does not end up in stereotypes. It’s been a while since I talked about the subject, mainly because of the fact I got tired of hearing how the Jews control the world. I want to remind ANYONE who still think so to stop reading and look at the other side of the appliance they are using to read this. It’s China who owns the world.

PS

I will come over and personally kill you if you said “there is nothing on the other side, I printed it on paper”. If you spent paper on this you need to be hospitalized, or examined. Unless it’s a toilet paper, and in that case, why don’t you switch to something a bit softer, like… politics.

The US elections are coming towards us, and this time we know when the iceberg will hit our Titanic and we all enjoy the freak show until we will wake up from the nightmare – only to discover we are still in it. Well, most of us know when the ship will hit the berg, Donald seems to have a bit of a problem with dates and little-kittens, and Hillary seems to have amnesia when it comes to proper transparency and honesty. I reminds me an old joke, and I dedicate it to Donald. Kids (or anyone with a decent sense of sensitivity), I really ask you to stop now.

Donald, can I continue? What are you saying? all the pussies are gone? OK, if you say so.

…

Donald Trump is traveling in a business trip to the middle of Siberia. It’s late, he is on the train, in his room, about to go to sleep, when he suddenly hears a strong knock on the door. He opens the door and surprised to see Putin. “With Vaseline or without Vaseline”? Asks Putin. “what?” says Donald, but Putin don’t wait. He pushed Trump, takes of his trousers, rapes him , and leaves.

Donald is in shock, trying to figure out what has happened. Perhaps Putin afraid because he heard what a winner Donald is with girls. It must be it. He press the alarm button and he hears a knock on the door. He opens it, and instead of the train manager he sees Putin again “With Vaseline or without Vaseline?” asks Putin. “Putin, what are you doing? I am the best, I am going to make you pay for it like I’m about to make Mexico pay for the wall” says Donald. Alas, Putin is almost as outraged by the words as the Mexicans and this time he rapes him for half an hour. It is way past midnight, Donald is lying in his room, destroyed, with a very sore behind-hole, and with his last effort he calls Melania. The second she answers the door is broken to pieces and Putin is there again, shouting “for the last time, With Vaseline or without Vaseline?”. “with, with Vaseline, say the conquered Trump. “Vaseline”, says Putin, “Come here, Donald wants to £u^k him as well”. Lights out.

The moral of the story? In life, like in the joke, lack of awareness means it is going to get worse, regardless what/who we choose. And yes, That was a horrible, horrible joke, but not as bad as the two candidates we have right now 🙂

Porn is like politics – both provides a fake acting by professionals, in order to satisfy an unbalanced, disturb inner world of the viewers, driven by their past traumas. Both provides temporary satisfaction but do not address the root cause of the suffering.

Most people vote in accordance to their personal experience of the environment they were exposed to. It is long and complicated story, and it is our story, or as we like to call it – “me”. The story we tell ourselves on why we are choosing things, the story that, as I already wrote in my previous article, is just a story our pre-frontal cortex is naming up especially to us. Our decision making is very much a result of a parliamentarian vote that occurs in our brain, while billions of neurons establish a unique state which we perceive as … something only we can. It is true to colors, to sexual preference and to the nominees we have when we are being given the right to vote, if ever.

So we are blinded by our story, and we carry our blindness everywhere we go, including, and in many times, especially, when we go to work. Think about it for a second – when you join an organization do you do so by totally assimilating yourself into the story of the organization? If you do so, without doubt, without questioning, you are a slave to the environment you are in. Many people use critical thinking, a school of thoughts that started around 500 B.C. by the Greek, to use reason. Reason requires a state of meta-cognition, of thinking about thinking, of reviewing the situation not from within the situation, making assumption and testing them. Again, most people will think they implement critical thinking, but I can assure you, most are trapped in their inner-mental-maze, and inject in the result their own judgment, their own perceptions, beliefs, stories.

This fairytale is in the heart of the problem we have in information security. Well, obviously we don’t have a problem, we are all going to die soon, but in the meanwhile, until the sun will expand just before it will die and take earth with it, in the meanwhile let’s pretend we have a problem (Thank you Gary Johnson).

When it comes to information security our inability to grasp the state of the others is in the root of our failure. The board understand information security almost as much as the Arabs understand the Israelis and information security don’t understand the board almost as much as Israeli understand the Arabs. Please, darling ones, feel free to exchange sides in the metaphor above, because we are all the same. I can hear you say “how dare you compare us to the Israelis, who violate international treaties and occupy the Palestinians”, or “how dare you compare us to the Arabs, with their brutal mass killings”. As I said before, way up there at the beginning of the article – it is SO easy to get drawn to statements, to make a big farce. The lack of openness any side is showing is just a sign of fear to face an inner perspective of the narrative it construct.

Here is one statement we heard for years: “Information Technology/Security fails because their leaders don’t know how to speak the board language. To succeed, we must learn to speak the board language”. Yes, I’m that old. But think about it – as data becomes an important, critical element of our economy (hello Google/Facebook/Uber) – wouldn’t it been better for the board have studied our language as well? Perhaps it is time to have an open discussion with the board about it? After all, If the mountain didn’t came to Mohamed, Mohamed came to the mountain.

What about us? Oh, dear friends, beloved infosec crowd – seriously guys, for years we been complaining that the board refuse to listen to us, but now we end up refusing to listen to those of us who been saying that awareness is more important than technology because our organizations are critically depends on humans? Oh, if I will hear one more time that someone wants to patch me I will punch him. Very kindly, full of compassion punch.

After-worlds.

You, who read this article, are not Human. Yes, google robot, I am talking to you, but also to all you “humans” out there. We are are all just partial human. We have a huge population of commensal, symbiotic and pathogenic microorganisms that literally share our body space, and defines our perception of reality in ways we still don’t grasp. It is called micro-biome, an ecological community. For years we ignored it, and only today we start to realize that our health both mental and physical is critically driven by these creatures which most of us don’t really listen to or live in harmony with. Perhaps before we start to speak about information security awareness training it is time to help our customers have a better sense of themselves. Without an inner sense of acknowledgement to the wonder we all experience there is little lack we will be able to bring any sense of “awareness” to technology which most humans barely understand.